Friday, June 03, 2005

And Why It Doesn't Matter

The Newsweek story is turning out to be more plausible, thanks to actual reporting from the New York Times.

The abuses to the Koran are not specified, but they don't have to be. The point is that although efforts were made to prevent these abuses, they did occur in type. Perhaps the specifics were wrong, but the actions that gave rise to these reports seem certain.

And it doesn't really matter.

Why?

Well, in part, because a week has passed. And the news moves on. There were over 40 dead in various attacks in Iraq yesterday alone. We know who Deep Throat was (we already knew it was Lovelace - the OTHER deepthroat). Lybian civilians are getting killed. Mexicans are dying in the Texas heat. Iran is getting closer to real WMD. As is North Korea.

But it SHOULD matter. And here is why.

Because when the plausible story initially came out, in Newsweek's periscope section, it was ignored. Then we learned that it might be false. Immediatly conservatives jumped on the bandwagon and began telling us that it was not only false, but indicated widespread liberal bias. They also had this odd sort of blindness, like no-one in their right mind could be bothered by having their religious tome thrown into a toilet. Just as blind, liberals jumped up to defend Newsweek, stating that the story was correct - when they had as little way of knowing as the people from Powerline. They also had this odd sort of moral outrage, like they actually gave a shit.

Something is wrong there. Something is wrong when people take the same data and come to 180 degree conclusions. Both the conservative and liberal bloggers and pundits need to look at what occured with the Newsweek article. In this case probably neither was correct, but both were very wrong.

7 Comments:

I agree, but why should we fret? We don't torture, but what we do is hand over prisoners to countries that do...doesn't mean our hands are clean. Just means we can still pretend to be a country with dignity, heart and soul, which is mostly gone...

MB: but we do torture. We recently hung an Afgani innocent to cell ceiling and beat him until he was dead. The history of this time is going to make flushing Korans and rendering prisoners into some of the more humane things we do.

LB: yeah, I agree. So much bad things, and so many people required to change anything. One voice is utterly ineffectual. So we're powerless, unless you happen to know someone named Bush or Cheney and can get a post on the administration. Even the CIA, FBI, state department, and who-ever else is around doesn't get a seat at the table.